CHAPTER XXXII.

For some weeks subsequent to the arrival of Captain Greenwood, the daily avocations of the corps were assimilated with those of the Heracleans, if we except the erratic disposition of Dr. Baāhar, which seemed to have become more enamored with entomological pursuits. In apology, he said, that the great beauty and ephemeral existence of the butterfly declared its special intention for the accomplishment of a transient purpose; and as angels’ terrestrial visits were few and far between, he had come to the theoretical conclusion that they were intended as relief vehicles for their conveyance during their earthly visits. For the verification of this theory he had increased his vigilance, with the hopes of catching an angel napping, which would recompense his trials from the jeers of an unbelieving world.

After the morning salutations, four hours were passed in the cultivation of the garden allotments in the latifundium, by all except the padre, curators, and artist, the former assisting the Kyronese in renovation in his vocation of carpenter; the latter named preferring pastoral occupations as more consonant with their instinctive affinities. From nine to eleven the time was occupied in the auriculum in conversational consultation for the exposition of Manatitlan usages, applicable for initiatory adoption by the Giga races. Thenceforward until the noon-day hours of meridian heat, devoted to repose in the shady colonnades, each individual employed his or her time in rendering 438neighborly aid or solace. When the shimmering heat shadows were reflected in gleams from the falling water indicating the sun’s decline, a slight refection was served.

From thence until evening song the time was occupied in associate consultations contributing to amusement and projective goodwill, embracing in scope devices for penetrating the armadillo shell of civilized vanity and selfishness. The ever changing novelty of thoughtful inventions suggested by these associations, were in moments of reflection a fruitful source of wonder to the members of the corps, from the constant increase of real enjoyment afforded, in contrast with the vague pursuits of instinctive pleasure followed with the routine regularity of the kitten’s pastime, by the civilized races. In the cultivation of associate worth they derived such abiding satisfaction from the increasing reach of happy perception, they were at times inclined to doubt their real identity as personal actors in the delusive scenes reflected from memory.

The self-imposed absurdities reflected from the accumulative worriments of business pursuits, and sensual gratifications were truthfully illustrated by Jack and Bill, in the quaint relation of their experience; who declared that their bodies had been launched and shipped with just sconce enough to eat, drink, scrub, chew, splice, smoke, and reef, under the old gaff, without the flutter of a sky-sail’s worth of thought more than what they were bid to do. “But thanks to Captain Greenwood, we’ve been saved from a dive into Davy Jones’ locker, where we once expected to be keelhauled in brimstone scaldings by Old Nick, without ever being able to take a squint beyond. Homsoever, now with the Dosch for a skipper, we’ve taken soundings, and know our bearings, so with a clear look ahead we can see a smooth surface in the channel without a ripple, or a scud aloft to take us aback from our portage.”

439Notwithstanding the constancy of the sailor’s ruder perceptions, the thoughts of the padre and Dr. Baāhar were often auramentally caught revelling in past visions of instinctive indulgence, so that it became necessary for the auramentors to remind one of his medical society, which held its stated meetings for the correction of ethical correspondence between its members in a beer cellar; and the other of a condition, in which he argued with his wife the propriety of retiring for the night with his boots on. Mr. Dow would, in like manner, be occasionally surprised in a mood of covetous calculation in anticipation of conferred honors and titles likely to be bestowed by potentates and societies in reward for his persevering merit, which had led to the discovery of the Kyronese, Heraclean, and Manatitlan races. But the slightest lisp of his first honors obtained for the discovery of a new species of crab, which was christened “Cancer Doweri,” restored him to a conscious appreciation of Heraclean example. M. Hollydorf and Captain Greenwood were proof to the lure of selfish thought.

The visit to the nymphatasium had been eventful, under the direction of the Dosch and Doschessa, in attracting an assimilative sympathy between Mr. Welson and a maiden teacher, C?luiformia by name, the daughter of the pastor Coryceb?us; this, through the intercession, or mediation, of the pr?tor and wife, had been matured for a surprise. The pastor had set his house in order for the return of his daughter, and the probationary reception of Mr. Welson. When the arrangements were perfected, the unwitting brides-wick was greeted at the portals of his thalmia when emerging for matin salutation, by the pr?tor, tribune censors, Kyronese, and Betongese, who escorted him after the morning song of praise, accompanied by the entire population to the pastoriza. At the portal the happy mentor received the embrace of welcome from the pastor, and one of equal zest in the expression 440of sincerity from the prospective “mother-in-law,” who introduced the blushing C?luiformia, radiant with affectionate anticipations, to the arms of her betrothed.

This consummation was the signal for the waiting choir of Manito, who made the tympanum resound with an anthem prepared for the characteristic expression of the Scotch instinctive type. Correliana, initiated into the proemic espousal dedication, directed the measure from Manatitlan lead. We give a rendering of the words in translation below:—
“From Scotia’s lock’d inlet shores,
Rough highland crags, and sombre glens,
Where heather glints o’er boggy fens,
And shivering, sighs lonely plaint;
In misty tears the lowland saint,
Of bracken braes, that rise from moors.
“With love, we hail the herald sage,
Who dares disdain the bogle chain,
Of myth-bound sects and all their train,
Whose fenny thoughts in muirk arise,
To obscure love’s creative skies,
With miasmatic hate and rage.
“All hail to his love’s perpetual vows,
That C?luiformia’s now espouse.”

At the close of the salutatory greeting, the parents bestowed upon the current unity of affection, in espoused accession, their joyful benediction, introducing them with a glad welcome to the freedom of their household colonnades. After their installation the assemblage dispersed to their daily avocations.

With Mr. Welson’s departure, the “quarters” of the corps seemed to have lost its active principle of vitality, and its members were to be seen in daily attendance at the house of Coryceb?us, after the morning salutations. Indeed, the transfer was so complete that the tympano-microscope followed in train, from the proposed consent of all, the Dosch remarking, that in their course they followed the universal 441“law” of attraction, that recognized the lead of strength, for self-control, as the predominating source of power for the control of others. This axiom you will find amply verified in all the motor relations of animate and inanimate matter, as well as in all the votive enactments of life. The sun, as the supreme source of effulgence and heat, attracts the lesser luminaries within the pale of its orbit, and as the revivifying source of vitality, force, and motion, it receives from instinct worshipful reverence; while in mundane expression, its effects are instinctively pre?minent in the attractive power of the preacher, lecturer, and democratic leader, for the control of the unthinking herd, as the oratorical expositors of sound. In your own relations you were controlled among your own people by precedental habits and customs, accepting them, without a questioning thought, as well approved by the ordeal of time. Away from your precedental theorisms, in enactment by the controlling majority, you were attracted by the influence of Correliana’s happy example over the Kyronese, and for the first time, with the majority, your thoughts were directed to facts for deduction and analytical comparison, which with the leading influence of Heraclean example has happily called forth into active life your latent appreciation of goodness. Following in its lead, after liberation, it has harmonized and rendered subservient your instinctive tempers, so that with the ascendant portion precedental argument is unknown, and politic prudence controls the less appreciative minority, even when opposed by the aggravations of material rebuttal. In apt illustration of the power of self command achieved by the pastoral members of the corps, while engaged in Olympic sports with the herd under the lead of the pastor Coryceb?us, Dr. Baāhar, the most pertinacious, politic, and irascible imitator of antiquarian revelations among you, having unwarily allowed his stronger 442passion for butterfly hunting to intrude upon the portion of the day set apart for the entertainment of the flocks in field gymnastics, was surprised while stooping to disengage a gaudy victim from the meshes of his net, by a disjunctive butt, in the rear, from the censorial horns and head of a precedental guanaco, which caused a cycle revolution of his body. Regaining his feet, he in wrath unthinkingly opposed himself to the sportive cause of his mishap, who was collecting his energies with blind zeal for the renewal of his “good old times salutation.” But with quick perception the doctor subdued his reactive wrath, and while the sportive ram was poising his head to follow up the advantage he had gained in reversing precedental ideas of naturalistic progression, he wisely concluded that diplomatic discretion would, for the occasion, be the better part of valor; acting upon the suggestion, with bipedal advantage, he dodged instead of opposing his body fatuistically with the adaged shield, “what has been, will be.” Notwithstanding his “presence of mind,” shown upon this occasion, he obstinately continued to pursue his predilection for fly catching, with increased zeal. Often in the midst of the most alluring conversation, devised for the reciprocation of instruction by Correliana, with a refrain of notes from woodland songsters to the musical tones of her voice, he would start wildly up, with his net raised “rampant” for the catch, with his eyes absorbed for the detection of the species and order of a butterfly attraction. When assured of rarity, he would rush forth with eyes and net upraised for the capture of the tempting lure. Gentle expedient, and every form of pleading inducement had been exhausted, that could be suggested for exampled persuasion, when an incident occurred which appeared in coincident similitude, like a conjunctive interposition, for the cure of his malady.

On a morning which had been freshened with 443night showers, betokening the approach of the winter solstice, Coryceb?us led forth his flocks, attended by all whose inclinations were not stayed with the occupations of gardening and household employments. Conspicuous above the happy throng, whose voices were melodious with song and mirthful repartee, made vivacious with bantering chase, was raised the pennon net of Dr. Baāhar. But for the contrasting halo of exuberant gladness, the bevied groups, as they passed beneath the cinctus portal, might have been taken for actors in some memorial scene enactment, expressive of festive gayety in historic commemoration of ancient ceremonial rites. Nathless, upon nearer inspection it would have been readily discovered that instinctive pleasure, from anticipated indulgence, bore no part in the joyous emotions that flowed in sportive current from affectionate association. Even the pennon net, borne aloft in naturalistic ardor by the enthusiastic fly hunter, had received its characteristic “fields” of red, scarlet, blue, and yellow, from a peaceful Kyronese dye pot, under the baptismal hands of the mirth loving sisters Cleorita and Oviata. After their arrival and dispersion among the hill glades, selected for the grazing of their flocks, Dr. Baāhar, apparently forgetful of the net staff, supported on his shoulder, was imparting to a bevy of matrons the secrets of vegetative propagation and fruition, when his words were suddenly arrested by the shadow of a butterfly of large dimensions cast by its interception of the sun’s rays upon the flower of his speech demonstration. A glance upward, with an exclamation of enraptured covetousness, and all his impressions and energies were concentrated for the capture of the resplendent andean queen of butterflies. Bushing from among his pupils, heedless of apologies, instinctive gallantry, and masculine courtesies bestowed in deference to the weaker privileges of the sex, he started under queenly lead down the incline 444of the hillock, with eyes upturned, fixed upon the rainbow glints reflected from the swaying waft of the andean regina’s wings, which were radiant with cerulean tints, as if in blending to proclaim her ethereal source. Like the ancient falconer, who with frantic gesticulation was accustomed to wave his luring staff to attract the attention of an eyas gaffling, who in freedom soared after striking his quarry, the doctor, with outstretched arms, pursued the tantalizing evolutions of his intended prize, which were sustained just beyond the reach of his net,—when, lo! while in full career, from an opposite direction, the king appeared, and a sudden concussion followed in quick succession, causing the doctor to drop his net staff, and in reciprocation enclose with his arms the object he had encountered, which, with the impulsive instinct of woman’s self-possession in dangerous emergency, embraced with her arms his neck. With faces in near approximation, the objects of this strange conjunction in wondering surprise held emotional consultation; then, in freedom from the reflection of modest embarrassment, which would have caused sudden release, the right shoulder of the doctor became clothed in raven tresses, intermingling with his own flowing locks, his right arm having fallen instinctively to the waist for the support of the fair possessor’s yielding form.

Forgetful of his net, and the vanished object of his first pursuit, he, in “good” Germanic Latin, free from the guttural ingesta inflection of saur-kraut, lager bier, sausage, and tobacco, offered apologetic consolation for the shock he had unwittingly occasioned, to which she replied in equally good English, “Pray, don’t mention it;” while with lingering fondness, her sighs and steps were made eloquent in responsive continuation, as he led her back in half-reclining mood to her parents. The pr?tor, who had witnessed the scene with a peculiar smile of satisfaction, explained 445the predisposing cause of the encounter,—inasmuch as it was appreciable to ordinary observation,—that it might not be thought an act of premeditation on the part of the female respondent, or her relatives.

“Our Heraclean marriage alliance is so closely interwoven with instinctive impression, hallowed by the unity of an affection independent of the body, that the rupture by death of either of the coaptive sexual individualities, leaves a void, from the material deprivation of functional reciprocation, so desolate to the female in its impression of lonely isolation, that instinct conjures some gentle hallucination, to supply the broken threads of sympathy in the weftage of the severed ties. This illusive visionary substitution is held as a consecrated indication of continued affectionate unity, for the survivor’s material direction in the body. Indeed, all our bereaved experience in some form this impression, in translation to some memorial object presented to view in the agony of instinctive disseveration. Isolita, the daughter of our cremator, who is now reclining in the support of Dr. Baāhar’s arm, had her attention attracted, while in the anguish of separation, by a superb andean butterfly, which floated over the body of her expiring husband, and with his last sigh settled for a moment on her head with wafting wings, as if by invocation to inspire her hopes in bereavement of a material emblematic source of communication and direction; then, from the court colonnades, soared directly upward until lost to view in the blending tints of ethereal azure. This scene impressed us all with its omenic signification, so that we could scarcely wonder that Isolita in her great sorrow received it as a presage of vehicular translation, to be treasured as a token of animus visitations from her departed unity in the flesh. Without doubt, she will hold the conjunctive act you have witnessed this morning as an intimated 446sign of direction for the selection of a scocius, or companion, for the completion of her earthly term of sojourn. The confiding trust, evinced from her retained position, already betokens her belief in the consummated fulfillment of delegated substitution. In like verification, you will observe that the doctor has abandoned his net, and the winged vanity of his pursuit, for the realization of a more happy and abiding achievement.”

In confirmation of the pr?tor’s prognostication, but a few moments had been numbered with the past ere a procession had formed headed by the cremator’s family, in hopeful conformity with the ceremonious rites they were disposed to accord in recognition of the instinctive liberalisms of sense which had been fostered by the doctor’s precedental education. Being obliged to pass the scene of encounter in their passage up the dale, the pr?tor’s face grew anxious as they approached the discarded net, but assumed an expression of gladness when the doctor passed it within the measure of a footfall, and without wincing saw it trodden under foot by the mother of his prospective affiancee. Relieved of his fears by the disdainful look cast upon it by the captured fly hunter, the family group of the pr?tor moved downward to meet the symbolical procession, and greet the advancing victor of self. While bestowing their congratulations, the fanatical fatuity, inherent with the expression of the doctor’s face, became broken and dissipated, as with mist clouds under the genial rays of the morning sun. In answer to the doctor’s application for the required sanction of his betrothal with Isolita, the pr?tor expressed his warm approval, with the hope that he would soon be able to derive his happiness from the prospective good his example would confer upon future generations.

“Still,” he continued, “without a clear knowledge of Manatitlan co?peration, in directing the wisdom 447of the ‘choice,’ I might have questioned the prudent propriety of the betrothal, from your pertinacious adherence to precedental habits, in defiance of the constant increase of self-inflicted misery. Especially, as I have learned from auramental source, that it has been the custom of the Germans, practiced from time immemorial, to render their wives servitas of convenience, rather than for the fulfillment of Creative intention, designed for the perfection of unity. From this isolating peculiarity of self-indulgent German instinct, it might be well for me to question, even now, whether in thought you treasure selfish desire that would detract by indulgence from the socius companionship of bereaved affection. Although naturally endowed with a strong instinctive predisposition, Isolita is in no way derelict in her full appreciation of an affection, matured in purity, independent of the body’s functions. Bethink you, in answering, of your deposed net?”

In reply, the doctor said, “My net has subserved its purpose, in fulfilling its destiny of prestige; for, as you well know, I have expressed my full belief in the especial design of the butterfly’s vocation, from the unrivaled beauty of its embellishments, which indicate the celestial transport, in previsemental aid of angelic visits. This morning I have received satisfactory evidence of the fact, and for the future have no farther object for its use; or, as we might say in quotation, ‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.’ If you can assure me of Heraclean reciprocation in the bestowal of the angelic capture I have made this morning, I will endeavor to discard, with my net, precedental pursuits.”

The ingenuity of the insect savan’s reply bespeaking the sanity of his self-possession, the pr?tor repeated to him the peculiarities of Isolita’s widowed hallucination.

Still himself, the doctor replied, “I feel confirmed 448in my impressions of her angelic nature, from your acknowledgment of the fact, that as a woman she harbors but one hallucination, and that I have been preferred as an equal for association with her, a privilege which has yet afore been awarded, in civilized society, solely, to her sex’s insatiate unabridged vanity by the cajoleries of man.”

With this additional evidence of the doctor’s consciously sane appreciation of the happy conjunction his morning’s encounter “foreboded,” the espousal received general approbation. The pr?tor suggesting the efficient aid Isolita would be able to confer in systematizing his botanical labors, from the thorough knowledge of her acquirements necessary for fruitful vegetation, they departed upon their first united essay in botanical research, and were not seen again until the herdsmen sounded their calls for their return to the city; they then appeared crowned with floral decorations in overture anticipation of united reciprocations.

Of all the returning train the padre’s face alone remained subject to the fitful indications of thoughtful sadness. The conjurations of the day had separated him from his last mythological hold upon instinct, raising a happy barrier between him and the familiar conviviality of genial gossipings in the language of talk. Returning to the desolate quarters of the corps, after indulging freely in chirimoya and milk, he became subject to the indigestive broodings of instinct, barren of thoughtful resources for occupation. In this condition, disconsolate, he paced the deserted colonnades long after Mr. Dow and the curators of sound had retired to rest. But the Kyronese, with sympathetic consideration for his lonely plight, busied themselves in the court and cochina, ostensibly in preparation for the duties of the morrow, until, with the impression that he would prefer solitude for the melancholy nursing of his ruminations, 449they yielded to the drowsy influence evoked by the approaching midnight hour; and unaccustomed to the vigil unrest of anxiety, begot by the dismal forebodings of dread from a belief in mythological rewards and punishments, their eyes were sealed with such sudden surprise that little choice was permitted for the selection of easy positions for repose. Of late, mindful of others’ comfort, he saw these sympathetic vigilantes overcome with sleep unheeded. Even Coryc?us intermitted his thought auramentations with the solace of an occasional nap, and with the padre still waking, and walking in a mood of increasing nervous excitement, he at length sank into a dreamless sleep.

The darkness which gathers its deeper pall of blackness, in reversion to the brightness in vivid glow of the dying spark, had merged from the palpable coldness of its impression into the murky gray of the shadowy dawn, when there came a change so sudden and peculiar in the outward sway of the hammacas of the auramentor’s family,—suspended from the vibrill? of the tragus across the foss? to the ante-tragus,—that the forward lurch awoke the occupants. Curious to know the cause of a motion so unusual, Coryc?us hastened, with the recollection of the padre’s condition, to take an observation, in which his wife joined with sympathetic alacrity. They found the padre kneeling and bowing before a rough-hewn statue of an ancient Heraclean mother, with a child, which she supported in her arms, the while counting with a “vociferous” whisper the beads of the rosary presented to him by Fraile Gallagato, alternating his devotional manipulations by cross “cuts” on his forehead and breast with his index finger. The scene was so ludicrously absurd, in evidence of the superstitious revival of his religious instincts, that the auramentors passed to a neighboring branch to watch his motions and hear his prayers engendered from selfish 450fears, wrought by indigestion and sleepless innervation, aided by the changes of the night. The image had been closely veiled with a vine embossure of iriditrope, which had been noted for its close resemblance to the sculptured statues of the immaculate virgin, without being aware of the model beneath. By some coincident freak, combined with fear, mist, and muirk, confounding with the incertitude of vision-fancied resemblance, he had discovered the statue beneath, which tended to raise his phantasmic emotions to a pitch of fanatical devotion. Impressed with the belief that it was a special revelation, designed as a reproof for his “backsliding” departure from grace, and neglect of his opportunities for the conversion of the Heracleans, he ventured to unveil the miraculous discovery, before seeking inspiration through the celestial gates of bead prayer. Notwithstanding the impression made upon the family of Coryc?us by the ridiculous farce, there was a weird instinctive effect that reminded them sadly of the benighted condition of his race, who still made themselves blindly miserable with selfish labor, to the utter perversion of affectionate ease imparted from the current equality of self-legislation to the Heracleans.

After an hour’s devotional exercise with hands, and mumbling prayer dronings and enumerations, wearied nature closed the scene with sleep, and he sank forward with his body and face prone upon the virgin bed of vine, in dreamless oblivion. In this condition he was found, as the ruddy beams of day began to dispel the lingering misty light of dawn, by the mayorong, who in sad fright made the courts and colonnades resound to his calls for assistance. Fearing that the vital spark had forever fled from the prostrate form of the kind-hearted padre, who, in despite of his incertitude, begot from his thoughtless reliance upon instinctive impressions, was alike the cherished favorite of the Heracleans, Kyronese, and 451Betongese, the mayorong made no effort for his resuscitation. The shrill, wailing cry, reverberating in anguished appeal, reached not only his own people who were preparing for morning salutation, but the Heracleans, who hurried in the greatest consternation to the quarters of the corps to learn the cause of the fearful outcry. Proof to the mayorong’s mournful cry, hastening footsteps, and exclamations of the excited throng, the padre continued unconscious, the gathering assemblage regarding his prostrate body with blanched faces and horror-struck gaze. When at length their surprised emotions had subsided into thoughtful sadness, “presence of mind” revived under the impression of regretful sympathy, which caused Cleorita and Oviata to kneel and raise the padre’s head, and with the assistance of their grandfather to turn him upon his back. As gentle hands withdrew the dank hair that enshrouded his eyes, the fall of tears upon his face brought forth a deep sigh, as if conscious of the source from whence they came; this, with a muttered ave, was followed by a quivering stretch for relief from the stiffness of his limbs, significant alike of retained vitality and reviving consciousness. Then, as if under the herald impulse of a dream of dread, he, with a spasmodic start, suddenly raised his head from the pillowed lap of Cleorita, bringing his nose in abrupt contact with the toe of the figure that projected over the pediment of the statue. This brought forth, with tears, his accustomed ejaculation, “My goodness gracious!” while he administered to it extreme unction with the soothing touch of his hand. The grimaced accompaniment, in revulsion, brought forth, in contrast from the depth of sadness, an irresistible outburst of laughter, from the late mourners whose eyes were yet moist with the tears of sorrow.

Starting up, amazed at his own unaccountable position, and the assemblage of faces that bestowed upon 452him their gaze, with mingled expressions of grief and mirth, the padre’s fingers sought his hair for the disentanglement of his bewildered impressions. Failing in his attempt to recall the causeful events, his looks appealed to Cleorita and Oviata, whose eyes were glistening with gladness through their misty veil of tears, like the sun’s rays through the cilium of rosebuds sparkling with dew drops; but the anxious inquiries of new arrivals diverted explanation from them. Evil tidings are ever quick in spreading when borne by the scandalous impulse of gossiping tongues intent upon marvelous impression, but with sad sympathy the alarm had spread from portal to portal, with tongueless celerity, heralding the source of affectionate bereavement.

Among the nearest, and earliest to be apprised of the padre’s supposed demise, was a young widow named Madonnasta, who resided with her parents without the oppidum gate, in the racept of the latifundium. Her husband had been taken by the savage besiegers when returning from a forage sortie; their hatred against the whites had been embittered by cruelties practiced for intimidation while the Jesuits were endeavoring to found missions among them for subjective utilization and the ruling advance of instinctive religion and civilization. In woful ignorance, they accredited their civilized foes with a united faith in a common form of worship, designed for the immolation of all unbelievers. Prompted by revengeful defiance, the unfortunate captive had been stretched and bound to a cross, the sacrificial emblem of Christian faith; and in that condition had been suspended over the brink of the precipice, in view of the besieged, who were forced to witness his agonized struggles, under the scorching heat of the sun, increased by the absorption and reflection of the basaltic rock, aggravated by the pain of his bonds, and the gnawings of hunger and thirst; but not without witnessing 453the desperate sallies made by sympathy for his rescue, in which with a wife’s devotion Madonnasta had engaged. When at length death relieved his mortal torments, and the vultures, with time and the elements, had severed the cords that bound the bleached skeleton to the crucial framework, and it to the precipice, it fell to a resting place beneath; then a successful sortie was made for their recovery, and they were cremated with the wood of crucifixion; but a portion was retained by the widowed wife, who with great care and ingenuity formed it into an emblematic cross, corresponding in memorial form with the one upon which her husband had suffered; this she suspended from her neck, as an instinctive memento of the sad scene of her mortal bereavement. Her devotion to the relic soon imparted to sorrowing emotions the hallucid impression that the crossed pieces of wood were enacting the part of a spiritualized medium of communication with the animus of her departed husband, and were consulted at certain hours of the day for direction. As the hallowed memories clustered around the waking hours of the morning, when from repose the grateful impressions of thanksgiving had been revived for affectionate reciprocation, she was ever the first in readiness for the orison hour of morning greeting. In these moods, the fervor evinced by her reverential endearments plainly indicated the instinctive lapse of her faith into the implied belief of material transubstantiation eucharistic for imparting the hallucination of actual presence for the renewal of connubial felicity. These impressions, which from their sincerity involved consolation, in no wise impaired the sanity of her thoughts and acts in matters pertaining to the rational employments of her bodily existence in purity of intention. On the contrary, it strengthened the outflowing tide of her affection, so that its tangibility was imparted with a perceptible thrill from touch, voice, and presence, to all within the sway of purity and goodness.

454It was the good fortune of the padre, on the morning succeeding to that of his first Heraclean advent, while yet subject to the relict baneful effects of whiskey, tobacco, and their habitual hereditaments of impurity, to be attracted by the beneficent fervor of the widowed Madonnasta’s pitying glances of sympathy, while passing the portals of her father’s house. The effect of these interviewing glances became immediately reformatory, for he sought a retired spot, where he “devoted” himself for an hour to the rapid chewing of his remaining tobacco,—supplied from the limited store of his friend the doctor, for a stipulated butterfly consideration,—the while ruminating upon the incomparable charms of his inconuistic discovery. After fully expressing its narcotic power to the offaled dregs, he, in the vernacular phrase of instinct, incontinently swore off, while from a fountain in the crematium he thoroughly abluted his mouth; then returning past the house of Madonnasta, he paid her his reverence free from the actual impression of defilement. Afterwards, whenever he contemplated a visit to the predisposed object of his adoration, he subjected his mouth to a thorough purification with the chloride of lime, recommended by his “friend” as an excellent deodorizer for the correction of effluviums. This politic course partook of in advisorial advocacy, and exampled acceptance, the ostrich’s fatuity, who in closing or concealing the eyes to self-reflection “supposes” its material body is rendered invisible to others. With the passage of time and his reproof pilgrimage to Amelcoy, he gradually became impressed with the mishaps attendant upon self-indulgence, and under the direction of goodwill he had obtained with her greetings manifestations of affectionate approval, which inclined her to study his language with rapid achievement and understanding success. These inter-allusions will afford the reader an understanding impression of antecedent and subsequent 455passages, elicited from the eventful singularities of the morning’s transpositions.

When the padre’s forlorn or dead estate was announced by the mournful cadences of the mayorong’s call, Madonnasta was among the first of her people who had flown upon the wings of sympathy, to realize with her own eyes the truth of the startling rumor that knelled the second bereavement of her hopes.

The padre, at the moment of her approach, was endeavoring, with his right hand in his hair, to establish an equilibrium for the use of reflective thought, while his eyes wandered from face to face in search for the cause of their congregated anxiety, manifested in his behalf. Observing the roseate flush of gladness that quickly succeeded the pallor of dread anticipation in Madonnasta’s face, when she found that he still lived, the padre essayed to address her in his own language, but upon the instant of his first articulation she caught sight of the cross dangling from his neck suspended by its chain of beads. Suddenly raising her hands in the clasped attitude of thankful surprise, she uttered the exclamation, “Al han espousita directicio!” (It is by thy fond direction!) and springing forward fondly clasped his neck in a joyfully conscious swoon. This episode proved fortunate, else she would have discovered his great trepidation and lack of glad reciprocation, which would have sadly chilled the realization of her transubstantial vision of predilected reunion dedicated for enactment through the padre’s substituted mortality. With his usual tardy perception, dulled from the renewal of superstitious impression, he gave only mechanical support to the form of Madonnasta, resplendent with the charms premised from prospective reduplication in the body.

Cleorita observing his perplexity and evident abashment, pointed to the cross of Madonnasta, and his own, then with eucharistical fervor he bestowed upon her lips a baptismal kiss, while with a blush of 456shame he concealed the pendent emblem, suspended from his own neck, beneath his vest. This devotional exercise and symbol, recalled to his memory the events of the night, with a circumstantial impression that Madonnasta had by miraculous interposition been converted to the Christian faith, which led him to exclaim with enthusiastic ardor, “Upon my conscience’ sake, it’s a miracle, how she has kept the faith among pagans!” With pity and admiration, he again administered the baptismal rite of instinctive communion, which served to revive the lapsed faculties of his incumbent burthen. As his somewhat tardy tenderness revived the waiting perceptions of his angelic godsend herald, sighs, like the rustling flutter of leaves stirred in the stillness of noon-day by the advance of a shower, betokened the restoration of vital energy, with the genial accompaniment of joyful tears. When at length the rosy eyelids of Madonnasta began with trembling vibrations to unfold, the padre’s features in waiting expectation flickered with the ignis-fatuus expression of catholic zeal, in the full belief of miraculous intervention for the preservation of the ordinances of revealed religion under the fructifying influence of saving grace. As with a convulsive shudder the full orbs of Madonnasta’s wondering eyes were unveiled, and made glorious with the expression of delegated affection, the padre’s face became illuminated with the propagandic light of zealotry, causing him to seize and bestow upon her cross an emblematic kiss of reverence. This act fully revived the pervading strength of Madonnasta’s hallucination, causing her, with a look of fond recollection, peculiar to widowed grief, to embrace his neck, while with her lips she realized to his fanatical zeal the confirmation of faith.

The wonderingly amused spectators of this pantomimically enacted scene of mutual hallucination, with this act of consummation opened a passage for Mr. Welson and the pr?tor, who had been attracted from 457the house of Coryceb?us by the hurrying excitement within the city portal. A glance sufficed for the assurance of a provisional “wedding” crisis, and the pr?tor was about to add his sanction, but the moment the padre observed his intention, he started back objuringly in the greatest alarm, muttering an interposing exorcism, at the same time exposing his own and Madonnasta’s crosses as shields of protection. His impetuous array startled the pr?tor with the fear that the padre was in reality instinctively mad. But M. Hollydorf explained to his adopted father that the padre’s disarray of thought had undoubtedly been occasioned by an unusual conjunction of circumstances, recommending an adjournment to the ordinarium of the corps for an investigation of facts, and a mutual understanding, under the sanction of advisement. When convened Coryc?us related all that had transpired within the scope of his waking knowledge, which extended through the devotional vigil of the padre. It was easy to trace from subsequent events the source of Madonnasta’s and the padre’s coincident delusions. She had recognized in him the transubstantiated form preferred as a substitute by her crucified husband, from the cross attachment to his rosary; and he, from the bias of an instinctive Christian education, had supposed from coincident impressions that she was a miraculous convert appealing to him for a husband’s protection. The Dosch advised that the padre should be made acquainted with the circumstances attending the death of Madonnasta’s husband, and her consequent monumental delusion from the derangement of her instinctive perceptions occasioned by affectionate solicitude. Then, if he chose, in prospect of their incurability, to solace her with his companionship during their allotted terms of mortal sojourn, their union should receive Heraclean approval, upon the plea of like illusive adaptation.

The padre was greatly abashed when the facts in 458plain demonstration were confirmed by Correliana and her mother. Mr. Welson then urged him to accept the coincidence as an omen of happy premonition. He then gratefully received the rites of sanctioned betrothal without demurring, after Madonnasta had been offered a like privilege of revocal by a statement of his mythological delusions derived from the ghostly precepts of a Christian education. Both with firm adhesion retained the bias of first impressions, and were escorted with joyful mirth to the house of Madonnasta’s parents, where, with parental welcome, the padre assured the assemblage that he felt himself proof against lonely relapse into the mythological haunts of instinct. After the padre’s betrothal and domiciliation, Mr. Welson with the Dosch returned to the house of Coryceb?us.

While the prominent eccentricities of the last two conjunctions were the subjects of mirthful explication, Mr. Welson abruptly addressed the Dosch and Doschessa with an inquiry, which, like the shadow of a cloud passing over a landscape made humorous by man’s instinctive invention, caused gleams of joyous transition from the reflection of absurdity, which, with authority, we are permitted to report.

Mr. Welson. “You have found it necessary in coupling the doctor and padre with yoke mates, to adjust their ruling infatuations with like characteristic hallucinations of will-o’-wisp affinity! will you now expound to me my own, that led to the direction of my choice? For I will frankly acknowledge, that with studied aid afforded by C?luiformia’s reflection, I have only been able to discover a lack of equality from my own instinctive imperfections.”

Dosch (with a joyous accompaniment of laughter). “You have an old ritualistic proverb of more than ordinary worth, recorded among your mythological oddities and traditional ‘saws,’ for the expression of Giga infatuation, which we will reverse for 459your especial benefit in aid of perception for the explication of the enigma you ask us to solve. The reading your experience confirms, in quotation, should be rendered, Sufficient for the day is the good thereof! and with us, Sufficient for the day is the exampled proof thereof!”

Their mirthful inclinations were stayed by the entrance of the padre and Madonnasta; the countenance of the former having reassumed the vacuity of expression peculiar to the fanatical rule of instinctive fear and prejudice, which in language we will allow him to express.

Padre (addressing the Manatitlans). “You must know that it is not my wish or intention to be ungrateful; but then one must have a care for the preservation of his soul; for what is the whole world to a man if he loses his own soul. I am certain you could not have failed to see by my actions, all along, that I had qualms of conscience that all was not right with me. Not that I would wish for a moment to question the motives of Heraclean example, or ever have, for I know that in purity it’s above my reach. But works, you know, are as nothing in the balance with one’s soul without faith, which works wonders. Neither can I blame you in any way, except that you reject the light, confident in your own good works; and I greatly fear that the sources of happiness you suppose to be real are the delusions of the devil, who goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. For what says Father Jaen, ‘Good works are of no effect without saving grace administered under the seal of confession!’ Well, after the strange marriages of Captain Greenwood, M. Hollydorf, Jack and Bill, with the sun overhead,—which I suppose is a pagan fashion,—and begging your pardon for expressing the truth of my mind, were no marriages at all, being extraordinary, without the sanction of the holy rites of the church, anointed under priestly seal, 460in sign manual of registry in heaven, which prevents divorce. (Addressing Mr. Welson.) Then you were espoused in another strange way, which shows that there is no regular sanctified method, as there should be. But yesterday, when Dr. Baāhar and Mrs. Isolita came together in such an extraordinary way, my eyes were opened, and I could not sleep, so I prayed to the virgin and her child fervently, which led to the miraculous discovery of her image, and only begotten son, just as the light was dawning, and while praying to her I was suddenly overcome with a slumber so peacefully sweet and deep, that I awoke to find myself dead in the belief of you all, at least those that saw me in that condition. In my vision I saw angels in tears, who seemed to express sorrow for the death of my body without the salvation of my soul by confession. Now, perhaps I was dead, for I found Cleorita and Oviata and the mayorong and his people and the Heracleans weeping, and felt uncomfortable in my body, as though I had just risen. Hardly had I begun to think, and had just bethought myself how I was overtaken, when I heard caress me (carissima!) spoken in an imploring way, at the same time found that Madonnasta had fainted in my arms, in an embarrassing way, which again bewildered me, until Cleorita and Oviata pointed to our crosses; then a light burst upon me, for I saw that she was a Christian among pagans, miraculously interposed for my reproof and her salvation, before I had sinned away the day of grace! All that I have said is true, and much more, if I could recollect it, which you would have seen if you had had faith like a grain of mustard seed. At any rate, I feel that the immaculate virgin and her holy son are my guardian angels, and the Manatitlans acknowledge that they are human, and depend upon good works for happiness, which is against the fathers and Scriptures, and I cannot, upon second thought, bring my mind to submit to 461your rites of marriage, which I fear are but little better than concubinage, that would endanger my soul and that of Madonnasta. From this you must know how anxious I am to depart, that Madonnasta may receive the rites of baptism and consecration for adoption into the bosom of our holy mother church. Then, after our regular marriage, we may return to assist in your conversion, if I am found worthy of confirmation in holy orders.”

It would be hard to express in language the mixed emotions of those of the assemblage who understood the padre’s interpretation of his waking visions of the morning, bred in emergence from sleep to the impressions of reality. The face of Mr. Welson assumed an expression of humorous admiration, seemingly gratified with the padre’s revived superstitious simplicity, which gave encouragement to his playful disposition for quizzing inquiry. The microscopic reflections in like manner appeared to enjoy, for the moment, the “tutored” dismay evinced by the rambling impressions of the padre’s rehearsal, incoherent with the precedental intuition of faith expressed in his memory of words. Madonnasta’s face, although apprised of the padre’s mythological delusions, “underwent” the varied changes of curiosity, puzzled for the want of a clear interpretation of emotions so foreign to the affectionate current of sympathy. Mr. Welson and the Dosch were alike dreaded by the padre, when the tenets of his religion and its instinctive incongruities, supported by faith in impossibilities, were rendered farcical by the contradictory absurdities of his questioned exposition of the law, prophets, and revelation; for, with a few interrogations, they invariably made him feel the ridiculous mist of his self-involvement. His incoherency had been increased by the proboscidial waggish indications of Mr. Welson’s nose, which he felt was searching for a tender point beneath the superficial flow of his religious 462faith; so he mustered all the dignified acerbity possible for repelling attacks made for the exposure of his gullibility.

Mr. Welson. “You have preferred your former desire to leave Heraclea, and propose to take Madonnasta with you for sacramental confirmation and marriage. After the explanation you have heard of the cause that led her to adopt the memorial emblem, would it not be well to question her farther, that you may learn whether her disposition inclines her to the course you propose?”

Padre. “You know very well, Mr. Welson, that I cannot speak the Latin language, neither can she understand the English sufficiently well for the full comprehension of my wish. But what is there under the sun more evident than the common language of the cross, commemorative of our Saviour’s crucifixion? Why, my goodness gracious, man, can’t you see that its use in her husband’s death, was the inscrutable means used for her conversion? Then what led me to discover the virgin and her child,—which you had passed hundreds of times without noticing,—when I was in the greatest need for their intercession from the want of sleep? I know that you say it is the statue of an ancient mother of the household, reverenced for her “virtues,” but this, as you well know, would not account for the effect produced on me, when my prayers were directly supplicating repose?”

Mr. Welson. “Our faces undoubtedly show what we cannot deny. But our smiles are not provoked by a scoffing disposition; on the contrary they are more inclined to sadness than derision, for it is hard for us to conceive the incomprehensible nature of an obstinacy so void in perceptive appreciation, although by the reflection it forces upon memory the perverse insensibility and difference of our past lives to the true source of happiness. That you, of us all the most highly endowed with the natural manifestations 463of goodness, should prove so dull as not to realize the source from which the happiness you really feel is derived, bespeaks an infatuation that exceeds the measure of our comprehension. But as you have determined to leave us, it is proper for you to understand the true interpretation of your betrothed’s feelings in prospect of her removal from home.”

Dosch. “Before she is questioned, I would have the padre fully comprehend the true nature of the alliance he would assume with Madonnasta, for she, in common with the Heracleans, has a realizing perception of the unity still existing between herself and former respondent in the flesh. Her true impressions, excited by the symbol in your possession, were that your sympathies flowed in unison with hers toward the severed reflection of her own identity, and that you were the preferred successor chosen for the representative solace of her sojourn in mortality. To disabuse her of this gentle hallucination, imparted from the severed ties of instinctive association, would, if possible, be cruel. Still if your prejudices are over strong against soothing her partial preference in the interchange of proxied solace, it would be better for you to depart alone. If, on the contrary, you can reciprocate in substitution her instinctive affection, you will find her a constant source of happiness, that will advance your perception to an earthly realization of the joys imparted from a foretaste of immortality, through the current reciprocation of goodness. Now that my wife has explained to her your multiplied delusions, founded upon the sounding words, faith and saving grace, with their attendant instinctive inducements for the patronage of gross indulgences, I will state to her the motives of your intention which prompt you to leave Heraclea, also your desire to have her body undergo the ritualistic manipulations of the priests of your sect, for the salvation of its instinctive soul, and recommend that you bestow upon her during the relation your regardful attention.”

464Madonnasta, during the recital, devoted her attention to the close study of the padre’s personal peculiarities, which were described to her as a prevailing index of corrupting effect with the Giga civilized races. With the mention of tobacco and distilled liquors, that could not be disguised to his ear, his face assumed the scarlet hue of shame, while with downcast eyes and tremulous folding of hands, he pleaded in thought parental example and the encouragement afforded by priestly absolution. Quick to appreciate his regretful sufferings, she was attracted to his side, and with the soothing action of her hands imparted sympathy for his self-inflicted misery. Shamefaced from the constantly recurring examples of his heedless lack of purpose, he made no attempt to renew his promises of constancy, but remained silently submissive to the reprehensive admonition of the Dosch. “If,” continued the Dosch, “you and your race would give heed to the warning impressions of your bodily functions when oppressed, your perceptions from memory would soon act as a guard against incompatibles and excess. Functional experience as an example for good and evil, in provisional guard for the welfare of digestion and healthy assimilation, is better by far than the theoretical tests of chemical analysis and the empirical counter-actives of the doctor, which only serve to exhaust vitality, distempering in the process protective mental power designed for the corresponding elimination of instinctive purity and goodness. Our bodily perfection, which ignores in age the artificial aids of plaster and paint, for the concealment of living depreciation from unnatural causes, has been attained by the thoughtful provision of ancestral example, which constantly held in view, with themselves, their responsibility to future generations, with reactive profit to their own happy correspondence with material self. It should appear, from the example of your last experience, 465which has rendered you phantasmally mad, that judgment should be trained individually and collectively to recognize in representation the adaptability of food in quality and quantity for healthy support. The cherimoyer as a fruit, and milk as a vegetable production from animal elaboration, are each separately, with a recognition of time and quantity, well adapted for the nutriment of the human body. But you, as with your race, have paid the penalty of heedlessness, and in relative degrees can realize from self-experience the origin of war, gospel, law, and medicine, with their legions of phantasmal abettors, which renders life a waking nightmare of miserable variations in opposition to happy realization. In the calm quiet of Heraclean life, with associate correspondence in purity and goodness, your impressions and desires have been so occupied with happy realities, that even in reflection, from memory, the gala day celebrations that attracted your instinctive passions of sense with evanescent beguilement have proved an aversion to thought. Picture in impression your emotions, if in the distance you can imagine a scene so abhorrent to the realizations of affection, you saw a procession passing up the now peaceful avenue of the latifundium, heralded with deafening shouts, cannon, Chinese crackers, bombas, the clangor of cymbals, obstreperous shrillness of fifes, screechings, groanings, and dronings of bagpipes, the monotonous boom and clattering roll of drums, a procession with banners borne by soldiers in the popinjay “uniforms,” glittering swords, bayonets, and like paraphernalia of vanity and death! Or the horror that would suffocate your tender hopes inspired for the increasing purity and goodness of future generations, if the temple schools of germination should be usurped to give place to the stable ritualisms of priestly compostors! When, with the study of your personal requirements, you seek to 466make your habits inoffensive and agreeable to purity and goodness, you will be able to avoid the humiliating impressions evoked by your morning’s exposure, which were solely attributable to a heedless lack of attention to your former experience and advice of Anticipator, who warned you of the effects you provoked. From the effect produced upon your involuntary powers from indigestion, you can judge of the living nightmare freaks of insanity which have been provoked from ages of conceptive indulgence to give birth to hallucinations of your present progressive civilizations. Once entered upon the realities of self-legislation, in its current form of affectionate solicitation for the welfare of others, the germ of goodness will expand for reciprocation, until in revivication it embraces not only the human race, but in instinctive effect and degree the lower orders of animality.”

The padre feeling the justness of the direction, and kindly sympathy manifested by the Manatitlans and Heracleans, could not withhold his eyes from giving misty manifestation of emotional appreciation. This “weakness” caused Dr. Baāhar, who had with politic diplomacy conformed, in outward appearance, to Heraclean usage, to become cynically provoked, openly urging that his childish tears accounted for his mistaking the rough-hewn Heraclean statues for the Christian prototypes of his creed. Notwithstanding the padre’s regretful humiliations, from a lack of thoughtful consideration, he could not withhold a retortful reminder from his old noli me tangere opponent, of his more flagrant assumption; after a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “I claim but a limited knowledge in genealogical matters pertaining to mythology, but I think I was not more daft in my judgment when I mistook the statue in the misty morning light, for the virgin mother and child, than you was in judging the Heracleans politic worshipers of one of 467your old Sclavo-vendic deities, because you found a statue garlanded with vine-disguised Kyronese mousetraps.”

This ever ready repartee, and apt for the occasion, served to dispel the reproachful shadows, that in impression hung over the padre from his listless predisposition to lapse into his old fatuous rulings of instinct. The admonitions of the Dosch had also aroused in him a reproachful fear that his example would serve to impair the confidence of new arrivals in the effective permanency of Heraclean example; which awakened in him a determination in his own mind “to make his calling and election sure,” by a thoughtful avoidance of precedental inclinations.